Annabeth Chase
by Winter Jackson
Summary: A review of critical, Annabeth Chase-centric parts of the PJO series, all in Annabeth's POV. Time span: pre-Lightning Thief to the Titan's Curse.


**I know, I disappeared on you. ****To Be In Rome**** is just making me go 'bleh'. And remember when I told you guys about that time of year when I blow up on Dad? Yeah, well...you can pretty much figure out what just happened. And I just...I need to write.**

* * *

Annabeth was five when she popped the dreaded question.

"Where's Momma?" she questioned quietly, pushing her spaghetti around distractedly at the dinner table.

Her father froze, a noodle trailing from the side of his mouth, his empty fork half-way to the bowl again. With difficultly, he swallowed his food rather noisily. Resignedly, he asked, "Is that what you want?"

She cocked her head, thinking. Fredrick had to marvel at how much she looked like Attie when she was thinking. Her grey eyes would darken to a steel color, and she would always gently cock her head to the right, and she'd go very still, like she'd suddenly turned into marble. Her chin would set, and her face would almost be expressionless.

"I don't think so," his daughter finally said, looking up at him. "I just want to know where she is."

He swallowed a little. "She's in the heavens," he said. Most likely reading one of her many, many books, he thought privately. Or chewing out Poseidon. Whichever she deemed more important.

Annabeth's pretty grey eyes dropped to her untouched food. After a minute, without a word, she pushed back her chair and quietly padded to her room, swaying in the opposite direction whenever she passed by a blowing fan.

Neither of them realized that the flexibility against even the wind would enable her to become the demigod's best knife and hand-to-hand fighter.

* * *

Annabeth was seven.

She clutched the hammer to her chest, clinging to it like it was the last thing on the earth, sobbing quietly and shivering as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. The young daughter of Athena took comfort in the steel weapon in her hands; she could whack any more monsters that came close, and she finally had a weapon against the spiders.

Her heart pumped faster, filled with fear and adrenaline at the very thought of _them—_the spiders. Her stepmother didn't believe her, she refused to let Bobby and Matthew get close to her, and her father sided with Helen.

The sense of betrayal welled up inside her, pushing aside her fear and grief, making way for anger.

Annabeth stumbled into some sort of ironworking facility, sinking to her knees behind a sheet of metal, leaning against it with a huge _clang_ as her hammer banged against it. She giggled a little as the metal quivered: it felt weird when you were leaning against it.

Then: "...sense it."

She froze. Nearly silent footsteps padded closer and then stopped right in front of her hiding place. Annabeth readied her hammer that she suddenly realized had no true sharp parts on it.

The metal was ripped away, and she flew forward, intent on causing as much noise and as havoc on the place as possible. Someone yelled, "Whoa!" and grabbed her hammer-weilding wrist, sending her weapon skittering away from her. Annabeth kicked out, trying to cause noise or injure someone, but all she succeeded in doing was swinging back and forth by her wrist. Frustrated, she screamed at them the first things that came to mind: "No more monsters! Go away!"

Her captor was struggling to hold her. Unbidden fear rose up inside her of, threatening to overwhelm her. "It's okay!" he said in a vain attempt to calm her down. "Thalia, put your shield up. You're scaring her."

Another moment of Annabeth fighting and kicking at nothing that she could reach, and suddenly her fear ebbed away, making her hesitate just the slightest bit. A feminine voice said, "Hey, it's all right. We're not going to hurt you. I'm Thalia. This is Luke."

The daughter of Athena eyed them suspiciously, wary of monsters in disguise. "Monsters!"

Her captor—Luke—shook his head. "No," he promised. "But we know all about monsters. We fight them too."

Annabeth froze at the new thought. There were others like her? Others that faced down horrible monsters and spiders and bad families? "You're like me?" she asked, wary of getting too close.

Luke smiled a little. "Yeah. We're...well, it's hard to explain, but we're monster fighters. Where's your family?"

Her sense of betrayal rose up again, but she pushed it away, saying as emotionlessly as she could, "My family hates me. They don't want me. I ran away."

Thalia and Luke glanced at each other for a long moment. Annabeth probably could've made a break for it and maybe even escaped, if it wasn't for a) Luke was armed with a knife and—was that a golf club?—and Thalia was armed with some kind of magic shield, b) Luke was a much better fighter, and c) her own weapon was fifteen feet away, behind Luke and Thalia. That, and strangely, she felt much safer with Luke and Thalia than she ever had with her father and stepmother.

"What's your name, kiddo?" Thalia asked quietly.

Annabeth hesitated for half a second, thinking about how that was such a mom thing to do, give a child an affectionate nickname like 'kiddo', before she responded with, "Annabeth."

Luke smiled, his blue eyes crinkling with amusement and happiness. "Nice name. I tell you what, Annabeth—you're pretty fierce. We could use a fighter like you."

Annabeth's eyes widened in respect: here was a guy twice her age that was asking for _her_ help. Age difference aside, guys did not simply ask for help from girls. "You could?!" She couldn't resist being excited.

Luke's eyes crinkled even further. "Oh yeah." Then he did a surprising thing: he turned his knife around so that he was holding it by the blade, the hilt out to her, offering the knife to her. Annabeth's mouth gaped a little bit. "How'd you like a real monster-slaying weapon? This is Celestial bronze. Works a lot better than a hammer."

Slowly, Annabeth reached out and took the hilt, staring at the beautiful blade in shock. She gripped it for the first time in her life for reassurance, the first of many times.

"Knives are only for the bravest and quickest fighters," Luke explained gently. "They don't have the reach or power of a sword, but they're easy to conceal and they can find weak spots in your enemy's armor. It takes a clever warrior to use a knife. I have a feeling you're pretty clever."

Annabeth exhaled, exhileration coming over her at the idea of actually having a weapon, staring at the speaker. "I am!"

Thalia grinned, looking like she'd like to get into some serious mischief. "We'd better get going, Annabeth. We have a safe house on the James River. We'll get you some clothes and food."

The mom-like caring Thalia sent Annabeth's reservations scurrying back to her. She abruptly stopped grinning and stared at Thalia and Luke suspiciously. "You're...you're not going to take me back to my family?" she asked. "Promise?"

Luke put his hand on her shoulder, and for a second she thought that he was going to hug her. "You're part of _our_ family now. And I promise I won't let anything hurt you. I'm _not_ going to fail you like our families did us. Deal?"

Annabeth grinned for real now, and said, "Deal!"

None were aware of how this moment would affect them for the rest of their lives.

* * *

Annabeth was twelve. And she wanted to throw up.

The new camper fought with such a protective visciousness and power that if it wasn't for the fact that he was a guy, she would've sworn it was Thalia. She had knelt at his side, scanning him for injuries, and made the mistake of looking into his swirling sea-green eyes, throbbing with grief and determination and so, so much _raw power_. It made her head ache just thinking about the kind of power he might hold.

Having traveled for months on end with Thalia, she knew when she was in the vicinity of a Big Three child. She was afraid he was another child of Zeus, she couldn't stand it if she was in the vicinity of Thalia's brother. And since lightning struck so strongly less than half a mile away, followed by a collasal_ BOOOOOOM_...

She lurched away from the demigod and hurled her dinner into the grass. Chiron looked up from treating the demigod and Grover, and looked at her concernedly. She shook her head and waved him off, hugging her stomach with one hand.

* * *

Annabeth picked at her pizza distractedly, thinking about Percy and Grover and how they may be doing. Unconsciously, she snorted, thinking that the stupid Seaweed Brain had probably gotten himself into trouble _again_.

With her snort of amusement, she'd drawn the attention of her family, who'd been talking. Helen looked offended. "I'm sorry, Annabeth, we _are_ going through a hard time right now. Money is tight."

She hastily gathered together a defense, and then the words sunk in, and without meaning to, she burst into bitter laughter. "I'm sorry, I wasn't laughing at you, I was laughing at a stupid Seaweed Brain I know. And now that your words have sunk in, I'm laughing at them now, because money being tight is the least of my worries, frankly."

Fredrick frowned. "Annabeth, we might need to shut off the internet, and you think I don't know what you're doing in your room?"

Annabeth looked at him blankly. "You think I'm constantly playing on the internet?"

Helen sat back with a triumphiant smirk on her face.

Anger rose in the daughter of Athena. "I'm sorry, did you people miss the memo that phone, internet, and electronic devices in general basically send up a beacon saying to all the monsters, _Here I am! Please come eat me now!_ I'm sorry, I don't feel like being eaten today," she said sardonically. "What's more, I seem to have forgotten to tell you all: I am a demigod. And as such, I have ADHD. Even if I _wanted_ to get on the computer, I couldn't _sit still_ long enough to play one of the twins' stupid games!"

As Annabeth's anger rose, so did she. She was now standing, her chair pushed back, her food untouched. "Oh, I seemingly conviently forgot to tell you all this as well: the demigods are on the verge of another Titan War. I'm not a little girl who is compliant to the rules. I'm a near teenager that got to see her best friend-slash-mother killed when she was seven. I'm a near teenager that got to be betrayed by her almost-brother and got to see her quest partner being dragged out of the woods by nymphs, unconscious and dying, and upon him waking up, finding out that he was deliberately poisoned by the same guy who _raised_ me. I'm _sor-ree _that I'm a _bit_ occupied in my room, training!"

Fredrick had gone pale when she told them about the demigods being on the verge of another Titan War.

"And guess what?" Annabeth said mock-happily. "None of the gods believes us! Isn't that great! So we have several Titans, a million monsters, and who-knows-how-many fellow demigods to battle against—_by ourselves_. Help from the gods? Let me get back to you on that."

Fredrick now looked like he was going to pass out, he was so pale.

"Oh, I'm sorry, does what I'm telling you alarm you?" Annabeth asked the table scathingly. "What about the fact that my best friend, my quest partner, the one who was recently poisoned, is the one that will save or destroy the world? How does it feel to know that your life and the fate of the world rests in the hands of a twelve-year-old, huh?! And you know what? He's my best friend. He's a son of Poseidon. And he's supposed to die by his sixteenth birthday."

"Oh that poor child," Helen said faintly.

"He's a son of _Poseidon_?!" Fredrick asked furiously.

"Why do _you_ care!" Annabeth asked furiously. "You haven't cared since you married _her_! You wanted a normal, non-demigodly family! As soon as you married Helen, you didn't care if my hair was clean, if my teeth were brushed, or if I had a lunch to eat. Hades, you hardly cared when I came home scraped and bloody because of a monster attack! You made such a fuss over Bobby and Matthew when they scraped their knees, and yet when I came home with a gash three inches long on my forehead you were like, _Eh, put a band-aid on it_."

She slammed her fist down on the table, making all the dishes and silverware rattle dangerously. "You should know that it was _Percy_ who convinced me to come back," she said lowly, dangerously. "I thought, maybe just this once, since his mother is so nice and his instincts about family are normally right, he could be right. I see that I was mistaken."

And she left the table. Ten minutes of shocked silence later, the front door opened and shut seemingly by itself with a horribly loud _bang_ that resonated through the house.

* * *

Annabeth was thirteen.

She swallowed nervously as she directed Percy to the place of many memories. "Keep going into Chesapeake Bay. I know a place where we can hide."

She guiltily wondered if bringing the Cyclops to one of Thalia and Luke's safe houses was dishonoring her memory, like Luke had said.

Thalia...Percy grew more and more like Thalia every day. At first, she hated him for it, for impersonating Thalia. She'd hated him for ages. Then she realized, nearly too late, that Percy was the best friend a person could ask for. Wary, _extremely_ wary, she'd gradually gotten closer to him, especially over this quest, as her patience was tested time and time again by Tyson—a brother to Percy. She hadn't even realized that it was probably Percy's half-brother that delayed them long enough to have the rest of the monsters catch up and kill Thalia. She hadn't realized—until Tyson showed up into their lives. But she didn't hold it against Percy. He didn't even know about the demigod world when Thalia was killed. He had to have been six at most.

Her head turned towards Percy as he suddenly sagged, looking tired, lost, and frazzled. That surprised her. He'd just reeled off longitude and latitude coordinates less than ten minutes before. Then she realized it must've been the salt water. They were in freshwater now.

"There," she said, pointing. "Past that sandbar."

Percy beached the lifeboat at the foot of a humongous cypress tree. She was reminded wryly of a wild Louisianian swamp. Percy looked disgruntled as he climbed out, swatting at mosquitoes. Annabeth resisted the urge to laugh at his irritation. "Come on," she said gently. "It's just down the bank."

Annabeth was reminded that she hadn't told him what rested twenty feet away when the Seaweed Brain asked, "What is?"

Her nervousness and guilty consciousness back, she said shortly, "Just follow. And we'd better cover the boat. We don't want to draw attention."

Tyson practically buried the boat all by himself by uprooting a bunch of small trees and grasses in one swoop, which just served to irritate her already irritated self. They traveled downstream afterwards, traveling in the muck and amoung the animals. Annabeth saw a snake slither past Percy's shoe. He saw it also and edged away warily. She bent over, pulling up the hatch, and said, "Here."

She watched Percy's reaction as he took in the waterproof walls, the provisions, and the demigodly provisions. He turned to her, his eyes wide with awe. "A half-blood hideout. You _made_ this place?"

She nodded, rapidly losing her courage. "Thalia and I," she said quietly. "And Luke."

Percy looked away, a small, sad, wistful smile on his face. "So you don't think Luke will look for us here?"

Annabeth shook her head. "We made a dozen safe houses like this. I doubt Luke remembers where they are." She remembered the scathing look on Luke's face. "Or cares." She made herself comfortable on the bags and started sorting through her duffel bag to find out what exactly Hermes packed.

Percy and Tyson talked for thirty seconds, and then she felt him sit across from her. She resisted the urge to shy away from him or lean into him like she did Thalia.

"Hey, I'm sorry about, you know, seeing Luke," he started awkwardly.

She nearly winced. "Not your fault," she said absently. She started cleaning her blade. She started thinking about Luke, how he let them go too easily. There was some kind of gamble and bait in play. So many pieces, some of them not even found out yet.

She had to question whether or not Percy could read minds when he said, "He let us go too easily."

Instead of gawking at him like she used to do to Thalia, she simply said, "I was thinking the same thing. What we overheard him say about a gamble, and 'they'll take the bait'...I think he was talking about us."

He raised a point: "Is the Fleece the bait? Or Grover?"

She studied her knife, thinking it over. It was possible. "I don't know, Percy. Maybe he wants the Fleece for himself. Maybe he's hoping we'll do the hard work and then he can steal it from us. I just can't believe he would poison the tree."

And yet, she could. He was never the same after his quest to the Hesperides. She could believe that he would sink to as low as stealing off of his sister, killing his other sister, possibly future girlfriend. When she was little, before Thalia died, she used to teasingly push them together. They'd fall over each other and then scramble to get off each other, and ending up just tangled up more, their faces redder than tomatoes. And Annabeth would sit back and laugh until she cried.

Oblivious to Annabeth's inner turmoil, Percy asked, "What did he mean, that Thalia would've been on his side?"

Annabeth, still lost in memories, replied distantly: "He's wrong."

She was fully jolted out when he pointed out that she didn't sound sure. She glared at him, and he wilted back a little. She sighed and resisted the urge to facepalm. Exasperated to the point of blunt truth, she blurted out, "Percy, you know who you remind me of most? _Thalia_. You guys are so much alike it's scary. I mean, either you would've been best friends or you would've strangled each other."

"Let's go with 'best friends'." Annabeth nearly laughed at Percy. That had been such a Thalia statement.

"Thalia got angry with her dad sometimes. So do you. Would _you_ turn against Olympus because of that?"

He stared at the quiver of arrows in the corner, answering with a flat, "No."

Annabeth nodded. "Okay, then. Neither would she. Luke's wrong." She plunged her knife up to the hilt into the dirt.

"So what did Luke mean about Cyclopes?" Percy asked warily. "He said you of all people—"

_Damn this kid to Hades for consistently bringing up sensitive topics._

* * *

Annabeth had her hands cuffed behind her back and a gag in her mouth. Her hair was matted with sweat, and she was pale and shaky. Luke held a sword to her throat.

Despite all that, she felt severely conflicting emotions about seeing Percy again. Part of her was jumping up and down in joy, knowing that he was mostly okay. Part of her was screaming at him to run. Part of her felt relieved that he was here to save her. Part of her was scared for him. There was no way he could get out of this alive.

His sea-green eyes met hers, asking her a million questions, but she told him to _RUN, RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN__, GET YOUR ASS OUT OF HERE, SEAWEED BRAIN_.

He either ignored her message or didn't get it.

"Luke," Thalia snarled. "Let her go."

The two cousins shifted into battle stance, and Annabeth was momentarily stunned into awe on how similarly they moved, with the same powerful fluid grace. They could be siblings rather than cousins, with the similar dark, wild hair, unusal eyes, and Greek complexion.

Luke didn't notice. "That is the Gernal's decision, Thalia. But it's good to see you again."

Without shifting out of battle stance, Thalia spat at him.

The General, on the other side of Luke, chuckled a bone-rattling chuckle. She swallowed. "So much for old friends. And you, Zoe. It's been a long time. How is my little traitor? I will enjoy killing you."

Under the sky, Artemis ground out, "Do not respond. Do not challenge him."

Slowly, Percy began to put the pieces together. "Wait a second. You're Atlas?"

The Titan's attention focused on the _stupid_ Seaweed Brain. "So, even the stupidest of heroes can finally figure something out. Yes, I am Atlas, general of the Titans and terror of the gods. Congratulations. I will kill you presently, as soon as I deal with this wretched girl."

"You're not going to hurt Zoe," said stupidly brave Seaweed Brain. "I won't let you."

My throat clogged up with fear.

A little ways away, the Titan sneered at him. "You have no right to interfere, little hero. This is a family matter."

He frowned. "A family matter?" he repeated uncertainly.

Zoe, behind the cousins, spoke up. "Yes. Atlas is my father." The queenly Lieutenant of Artemis stalked forward until she was in front of and flanked by the Big Three cousins. "Let Artemis go."

Annabeth looked at Percy desperately, trying to convey her message through her eyes. They knew each other well enough, he should be able to read her eyes by now, from the amount of times that stupid Seaweed Brain got himself into trouble. _DON'T KILL LUKE_.

Percy looked at her intently for a couple of seconds, and for a second she was startled by the look in his eyes. She had seen grief, determination, something akin to insanity, happiness, sadness, wistfulness, anger, mischieviousness, and amusement, but she had never seen _rage_. His eyes reflected that of a stormy sea—the kind that swamps even the greatest of ships, that is relentlessly pounding on the shore, the kind that is untamable and will be felt hundreds of miles away. Raw power and strength surged behind the rage like an elephant behind a battering ram, breaking through his carefully built barriers that until then she didn't even know that he had.

He exchanged words with Atlas, with Thalia, with Zoe, all while keeping his eyes on me, trying to decipher her message that Annabeth was desperately trying to send to him.

Then his whole demeanor changed, and he swung Riptide in a deadly arch, his eyes alight with fear and determination and rage and enough willpower to tame the stormy sea. Atlas laughed as he swung his javelin like a baseball bat, knocking Percy through the air and sending him flying into a now-solid wall. Annabeth screamed through her gag.

"Fool!" Atlas cried gleefully. He swatted aside one of Zoe's arrows. "Did you think that because you could stand up to that petty war god that you could stand up to _me_?!"

_Oh, he will_.

Percy got up from his crumpled position like he was a simple spring and charged Atlas again. Atlas's javelin sliced through the air. Percy's movements were sluggish and he didn't manage to raise Riptide in time—and the javelin caught him straight in the chest. Annabeth screamed his name through her gag again, wrenching her hands free from her restraints, or attempting to, as he flew through the air once more and landed with a sickening _thud_ at Artemis's feet.

Riptide had skittered over the edge.

"Die, little hero," Atlas said triumphantly.

Annabeth screamed again as Atlas raised his javelin to impale Percy.

"No!" Zoe yelled, shooting a volley of arrows into a chink in her father's armor, drawing his attention.

Annabeth thought Percy had reached his max for idiocy. He decided to prove her wrong, yet again.

"The sky," he said urgently. "Give it to me."

"No, boy," Artemis said urgently. "You don't know what you're asking. It will crush you!"

"Annabeth took it!" Percy protested.

Annabeth struggled even more, scraping against the lock.

"She barely survived. She had the spirit of a true huntress. You will not last so long."

Annabeth pretty much burst into tears at Percy's words. How did he know about the prophecy? "I'll die anyway. _Give me the weight of the sky_!"

**A/N:**

**Just kind of an insight into Annabeth's head and why she was so mean to him in TLT. Anyway, this made me feel better, that's for sure. Nothing like reading (or writing) about a worse family situation to make you feel better. Well, it's like five o'clock here...I've been writing all night. This is actually the second time I wrote this...my trusty laptop crashed on me and I lost the first version. But I like this version better. I'll probably write about BotL and TLO later.**

**-Winter**


End file.
